USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. II > Part 10
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The Anti-Slavery Agitation in Illinois.
Subsequently he settled in Galena and was elected to congress in 1853, representing Illinois in that body sixteen years. His sphere of statesmanship broadened by his responsibilities during this period, so as to make him the actor on a new stage, as told by Mr. Eastman in the following pages-and here it should be stated, that no other one has the material from which to write it as well.
Mr. Washburne was minister to France during the Franco-German war of 1871, and remained in Paris dur- ing the remarkable siege of that city.
He died in Chicago October 22, 1887.
Zebina Eastman was born in North Amherst, Mass., September 8, 1815. When nineteen years of age he became one of the proprietors of the Vermont Free Press, June 7, 1834. In 1837 he became associated with the veteran abo- litionist, Benjamin Lundy, in publishing the Genius of Universal Emancipation.
In 1842, invited by several abolitionists of Chicago, James H. Collins, Dr. C. V. Dyer, H. L. Fulton, S. D. Childs, Calvin De Wolf, N. Rositter, Rev. F. Bascom, L. C. P. Freer, J. Johnston and others, he removed to Chi- cago and started the Western Citizen, which became not only the leading anti-slavery organ of the northwestern states, but also one of the leading papers of Chicago. He was assisted by his friend Hooper Warren.
In 1850 Mr. Eastman was appointed delegate for Illi- nois to the World's Peace Congress at Frankfort, Germany. This was an important epoch in his life. His philan- thropic heart took in all reforms which he thought would benefit mankind. The question of peace among men was at that time much discussed, and plans for the abolition of war and strife and the settlement of international disputes by arbitration were being promoted on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1861 he was appointed consul to Bristol, England, by President Lincoln, which position he held eight years.
He died in the village of Maywood, Ill., June 14, 1883. Mr. Washburne made some appropriate remarks at his fu- neral, which was attended by many friends who loved him.
HISTORY OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION, AND THE GROWTH OF THE LIBERTY AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES IN THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
BY HON. Z. EASTMAN.
I have been requested to write for this work some passages of history bearing upon the late agitation of the anti-slavery question in the west, and its effects upon the fate of the nation. It is superfluous to state that it is a favorite doctrine of our people, that ours is a government of liberty; that liberty is the great boast of the nation, and the object and end of the struggles of our forefathers in making this country an asylum of the oppressed of all lands, and achieving finally national independence. Consequently, when the form of government first began to take shape, it was upon this declaration, which it was assumed was a self-evi- dent truth, "that all men were then equal, and are en- dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- ness."
The patriots of the revolution, who achieved their independence, were doubtless sincere believers in this truth. They had no mental reservations, that is, the most of them; and believed that the doctrine applied to black men and slaves, as well as to white men.
They did not say, and they did not mean, that white men, when they combined to make a new government, were then equal, etc., as a distinguished senator from Illinois once stated they meant to say.
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It was very consistent with this doctrine of the fathers of the revolution, that when the nation had re- ceived the bequest of a large area of territory which was by nature free from slavery, they should have taken special pains to guarantee that state of freedom for all future time. Negro slavery, they said, had been forced upon the colonies by the policy of the mother country; and as it was found existing in all the original territories, they could see no other way but to leave it to time and Providence for its extirpation. But wher- ever the nation began new it would keep itself clear of this admitted curse. The nation had no territory of its own. It was all made up of the areas of the provinces or colonies that had entered into the confederation which was formed to secure national independence. After the treaty of Paris in 1783, the United States be- came territorial owners of the country intervening be- tween the colonial settlement and the Mississippi river. Consequently, the states which held territory outside of their administrative limits ceded such territory to the nation as a body capable of inheriting and of hold- ing such an estate. And therefore Connecticut and Virginia relinquished their jurisdiction over the vast regions of wild and uncultivated lands in the north- west, which they held by virtue of their colonial char- ters. Virginia ceded the larger part in a state of nature. Land unoccupied by civilized man, though full of the wealth of the forest and the mine, is as valueless as the waves on the ocean. So the Virginia territory of the northwest was money-valueless to the state if it re- mained without population. Without impoverishing herself she gave to the nation the vast territory, and in so doing she gave it an empire. But she coupled with the gift the condition that it should be kept free forever from that curse of slavery which already was then be- ginning to prey upon her own vitals. Thus originated the ordinance for the government of the northwest territory, which was passed by congress in 1787, as the
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condition of receiving the donation of the territory from Virginia. Art. VI of the said ordinance provides: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude in the said territory otherwise than in the punish- ment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
On the passage of this clause of the ordinance, finally rested the fate of the nation. It was originally insisted upon (it is said) as a political and economical measure-that to give to the land a marketable value, for the settlement of free and independent laborers and owners of the soil, it should be kept free from slavery. Whatever the motive, it has proved to have been in the largest degree profitable and wise, and a controlling policy in the fate of the nation. It was in this sphere, and in the area of the northwest territory, that the problem was solved that finally delivered the nation from the incubus of slavery. The consecration of the northwest to freedom by the state of Virginia became the nucleus of the power that delivered the nation. The story of this achievement, to a large extent yet unwritten, except in the acts of men, is to form the chapter of history we are about to write.
The northwestern ordinance, so called, was the ratification of the deed of cession for the territory lo- cally defined as "lying within the United States, north- west of the Ohio river," and it declares that there should be formed in the said territory not less than three and not more than five states. And in the terri- tory were organized, as population rapidly increased, the five states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. It then embraced all the territory within the boundaries of the United States lying outside of special jurisdiction, for the southern Atlantic states claimed that their boundaries extended to the French and Spanish possessions at the west and south. In this "earlier and better day," we see that the policy was to make all national territory free, and not divide it, as
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the Missouri compromise indicated, into half free and half slave; or make it all slave, as the repealers of the compromise evidently intended.
Besides the exclusion of slavery from the territory we may judge the tone of the times and the character of the instrument from such clauses as these: "All fines shall be moderate; and no cruel or unusual punish- ment shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. Should public exigencies make it necessary * * * to take any person's prop- erty, or demand his particular services, full compensa- tion shall be made." And better still: "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good gov- ernment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." There ought to have been good government on such a charter. To this northwest territory, under the im- pulse of freedom, came rapidly an energetic and intelli- gent population, making homes and civil society on the fertile lands, which probably surpassed any other equal area on the face of the earth. It became the empire to which the moral and political power of the nation con- centrated.
But there was a strong impulse to emigrate from the slave states to this region, as well as from the northern states, which were fast throwing off the rem- nants of the slave system that had clung to them. Many of the people of the south came to the northwest to get rid of slavery, but they often retained the pre- judices in which they had been educated. There was, however, a strong feeling among the early settlers that the slavery prohibition was acting detrimentally to the growth and development of the country of the north- west, a section to which all eyes were turned, as since they have been turned to the lands beyond the Missis- sippi and the Pacific coast. There was not always ab- solute faith in free labor in conflict with slave labor.
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There were many dissatisfied persons, who held public meetings and memorialized congress to obtain a removal of the restriction for a limited time, that southern planters might be induced to move into the territory with their slaves. A sort of quasi slavery was introduced in the name of apprentices, which gave a slave code to Illinois, in spite of the slavery prohibition clause. So good a man as Wm. Henry Harrison was made president of a convention at Vincennes, Territory of Indiana, in 1804, the object of which was to promote territorial interests by obtaining a modification of this organic law. We see now what was gained by holding fast to the right thing, against the popular drift and a short sighted policy. The slavery prohibition clause was the vital element in the prosperity of the north- west, when the tide of population finally had set in this direction.
But there were many who had been trained in the notion that slavery was the only element of prosperity at the south, who were constantly harping on that one string: "Let slavery be introduced into the north- west." At so late a time as 1839 and 1840, after the mur- der of Lovejoy, and when the state was loaded down by weight of debt and depression of business, there were men of influence who declared there was no other way for the state to be delivered from its "Slough of Despond," but to call a state convention and alter the constitution, so that slavery might be legally intro- duced. It was the thought of some that there could be no prosperity unless some one did the work of another for nothing. In much earlier times there were promi- nent men in this state who persistently held to such views, and they were carried into political action to that extent that the supporters of this policy were de- fined as the "slave party."
The territorial legislature of Illinois seemed to favor the measure, but it produced a partial reaction, so that an anti-slavery delegate, Jonathan Jennings,
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was elected to congress, who retained his place until Illinois was admitted as one of the states of the Union, in 1818. In 1824 the question of the admission of slavery came up so prominently in what was called the convention issue, which was to call a convention to alter the constitution to admit slavery, that it became a marked chapter in the history of Illinois. Gov. Coles was distinguished as an anti-slavery man on this ques- tion. He had moved into the state from Virginia, had emancipated his slaves, and settled them on land near Edwardsville. It required a vote of two-thirds of the legislature to call a convention for the people to vote to alter the constitution. And so strong was the slavery party in the state that they lacked only one vote of getting the constitutional two-thirds in favor of the measure at first; and by a legislative trick this one was at last gained, and a vote of the people for the con- vention was authorized; but in August, 1824, it was voted down by the people by a majority of 1,800 in a vote of 12,000 .*
On such a slender thread as this did the fate of the state and the nation hang, as the truth of history shows.
There was in 1824, in consequence of these schemes for slavery, a strong contesting anti-slavery party in Illinois. This was after the passage of the Missouri compromise, in 1820, and when there had come a re- lapse in the anti-slavery feeling everywhere else in the country.
Benjamin Lundy was at that time printing in Tennessee the first anti-slavery newspaper ever is- sued. The slavery question was then generally ad- mitted to be a matter to be determined by the people of the slave states for themselves. From Lundy's ef- forts came the agitation of modern abolitionism. It took on a new and more energetic phase, when Garri-
*Mr. Washburne's "Life of Gov. Coles" gives a vivid picture of this contest.
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son, a disciple of Lundy's, started his Liberator at Boston, in 1830. Those who took interest in the anti- slavery discussion that grew out of the Missouri com- promise in 1820 looked upon this convention question in Illinois as one of national importance-should the apostasy of the Missouri question lead to the abroga- tion of the northwestern ordinance ? and shall the whole territory northwest of the Ohio river be given up to slavery by a vote of the people, on the primitive squat- ter sovereignty assumption, in spite of the Missouri compromise ?
It was during the time that these apostate settlers were proposing to repeal this restriction clause in the ordinance, and after the slavery question was being agitated in Illinois, that Thomas Jefferson wrote his famous letter, in 1814, to Gov. Edward Coles, on the condition of the slave and the hopes of his emancipa- tion. He says : "The love of justice, and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people ; and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have plead so long in vain. * * From those of the former generation who were in the fullness of age when I came into public life, which was while our controversy with England was on paper only, I soon saw that nothing was to be hoped. I had always hoped that the younger generation-receiving their early impres- sions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast, and had become, as it were, the vital spark of every American, in the generous tempera- ment of youth, analogous to the motion of their blood, and above the suggestions of avarice-would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it. * * Yet the hour of emancipation is advanc- ing in the march of time."
Hardly thirteen years had passed away before this anti-slavery party of Illinois seemed to have perished, or the men leading in it taking opposite sides, when
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the question came up on new issues. Hooper War- ren, who had been the single newspaper editor who opposed the convention, was almost the only man alive of the old associates, who ranked himself with the modern abolitionists. Rev. John M. Peck, who had been an active opponent of the introduction of slavery into Illinois, was active in opposition to modern aboli- tionism, and was regarded as pro-slavery, and was en- gaged as editor of the Southwestern Baptist Banner -a newspaper that was completely acceptable to a de- nomination that owned one of their preachers as a slave, and to a church where one of the female mem- bers sold a brother Baptist, and contributed the avails of the sale of the brother's flesh and blood to buy the plate for the communion service. But still the truth seemed to be left in the land, like the leaven, to bring . the dead mass to life again; and emancipation went marching on with time.
About ten years after this convention project was settled, Rev. E. P. Lovejoy was found in St. Louis, editing a religious newspaper, in which, under the privileges of the free press, he claimed the right to dis- cuss the subject of slavery as a moral question.
That right was denied him, and he was driven out of St. Louis, and he sought a city of refuge in Illinois, at Alton. Here he claimed only the same right, not to be an abolitionist, but the freedom of the press to dis- cuss slavery as freely as any moral question. And that right was again denied him in Alton by the voice of the populace, but not by the law. One press after another was destroyed, he still persisting in standing by his rights.
In the month of November, 1837, he was killed by a mob, and in thirteen years after the state had de- liberately decided to stand for the liberty that was guaranteed her in the ordinance for her government, she gained the unenviable title of being the Martyr State, by suffering one of the truest men that ever
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lived, to die for the very cause that she had made alive. There were very few people in the state to raise any voice of condemnation against this outrage. Devout men carried Lovejoy to his burial, and a brother minister made a prayer over his grave, at which only were pres- ent, for fear of the mob, but one or two faithful friends and relatives. A cluster of brother ministers of the new school Presbyterians and Congregationalists, and pious members of these churches, stood by him in his conflicts for the freedom of the press, and lamented him when dead, and had their zeal for the same cause inspired by his example. Every important town in the state seemed emulous of the example of Alton. It was the exultant boast of the people of Illinois, in 1837, that no abolition newspaper could be permitted on her soil. Abolitionism, a "word covered o'er with shame," al- ways meant, and only meant, the freedom of the slave -that emancipation, which Jefferson so hopefully saw advancing in the march of time.
Soon after the murder of Lovejoy, there was a meeting called in Chicago-not to sympathize with the cause of abolitionism, but to condemn this assault on the constitutional right of the freedom of the press. It was called to be held in the Saloon building, a small public hall on the corner of Clark and Lake streets, on the third floor, and the meeting was held not without fears that it would be broken up by a mob. There was an abundance of caution used in the calling and holding of the meeting, to avoid any collision "with the fellows of the baser sort." Rev. F. Bascom, of the First Pres- byterian church, Dr. C. V. Dyer, Philo Carpenter, Robert Freeman, Calvin De Wolf, and some few mem- bers of the Baptist and Methodist churches, were the leading spirits of this meeting. A watch was set to give seasonable warning of any approach of a mob, should any one be sent upon the track of these devout men, mourning for Lovejoy, and endeavoring to give voice to a right minded public opinion. But there was,
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happily, no demonstration of mob violence. The meet- ing was not a large one, but probably fully represented the interest which Chicago then took in the fate of Love- joy; the city was at least saved from the disgrace of a mob. It was not then presumed that an abolition press would have fared any better in Chicago than it had at Alton. The public were not prepared to tolerate any such newspapers.
This was the first anti-slavery meeting, if it may be called such, held in Chicago, of which there is any recollection. The men who were present became promi- nent afterward in the anti-slavery history of Chicago. The men who were willing to be known as abolitionists, soon after this event, were mainly a nucleus that formed around the First Presbyterian church, embrac- ing a few individuals who were Methodists or Baptists; but in almost every instance they were professing Christians, who were led to take a stand by the death of Lovejoy. Here was the beginning of that anti- slavery sentiment that became a power in Chicago, and made that city distinguished throughout the coun- try, as one that proved itself a law abiding community by sheltering and protecting the fugitive slave against illegal arrest.
A few months after the death of Lovejoy, the peo- ple of the west saw this announcement in G. D. Pren- tice's Louisville Journal: " Benjamin Lundy, the Quaker and anti-slavery pioneer, is about to go to Illi- nois to succeed Lovejoy in printing an abolition news- paper." Prentice had known of the career of Lundy, and was personally friendly. It was then said that Lundy, the non-resistant Quaker, who was known as a prudent though a fearless man, was the only person the merciless people of Illinois would let live in their midst as the publisher of a newspaper that opposed slavery, and it was very doubtful if even he could find a place for the rest of the soles of his feet in the prairie state. But during the year 1838, Lundy,
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according to promise, made his appearance in Illinois. The last compliment paid him before he left Philadel- phia was the burning of all his worldly effects by the mob in Pennsylvania hall. He had only a subscrip- tion book to begin his publication with in Illinois. The Genius of Universal Emancipation, a paper which had been printed for years, in different cities and states, now hailed from Hennepin, but was really printed at Lowell, La Salle county. The notable thing about this paper for our purpose in this connection, was that it carried upon its frontlet this motto: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," etc. This was the motto and the plat- form of Lundy's journal ; the paper was for the restora- tion of the doctrines of the Declaration of Independ- ence in 1776.
We can better understand this line of argument, in history, by referring to the character of the anti-slavery agitation, as carried on by different sects in different sections of the country. The anti-slavery movement was largely an emanation of the religious sentiment. Leading men in it were usually professing Christians and largely developed in the line of personal piety and human benevolence. There were a few persons who were earnest abolitionists who were avowed unbe- lievers, and probably from a logical inference growing out of the fact that the majority of the professing Christians of the country pretended to believe that the Bible authorized slavery, making God the author of that abominable system of iniquity. But slavery in all its aspects was very largely a political institution. It was created by law; it must be abolished by law. There was no class of abolitionists that proposed the removal of slavery by the political power of the nation. It was universally regarded as a state institution, and it was a perversion of the facts and a misrepresentation of the position of the agitators, the assertion that there
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was any purpose to meddle with slavery by an undue exercise of legal authority.
It was a movement for a moral appeal to the slave- holders to action, of themselves, for their own salva- tion. Therefore the fact should be remembered that many of the active abolitionists were among and from the slaveholders of the south ; and a sad thing it was for the people there that they drove such men from their midst. The abolition party was divided up into sects ; some were for carrying that reform mixed up with other good measures, such as woman suffrage, land reform and temperance. Some were for making it a political question, carrying it to the polls, as they said ; others were not for soiling the reform in the muddy waters of politics. Garrison stands forth as a leader, but he was not for voting at all, and declared for "no union with slaveholders," in church or state. The voting abolitionists formed a political party in 1840, and nominated James G. Birney, formerly a slave- holder, for the presidency.
But this section was again divided into other sects. Some were only free soil; some merely against the extension of slavery, and the Gerrit Smith section was the very antipodes of the Garrisonian section. They believed in the unconstitutionality of slavery, and would have had it smitten down by a decree of the United States court. Garrison's special characteristic was his repetition of Elizabeth Heyrick's English propagandism of immediate and unconditional emanci- pation, as in opposition to gradual emancipation, on the logical inference that slavery, being a sin, should be immediately forsaken by profession of repentance. Great stress is laid on Garrison's work for originating this doctrine in this country, and giving it, as it was said to do, the great moral power that carried it through to success in emancipation. But the virtue of this claim is much over-rated. Garrison did not orig- inally preach it, nor was it finally carried to comple-
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